Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion
But, and this is important, the two notions are never very sharply sundered they are but two faces Of the same thought, or rather will, the will to live. Beating, at the first glance, looks like mere expulsion of evil - you beat the mischief out of a child]. But certain ritual prescriptions show another face. In Lithuania2 the Easter Beating must be in?icted with a twig or branch of birch on which the green leaves have just sprouted. Endless care is taken to secure this. If the birch branches do not bud in time the birch rods are kept in warm water for days-if even then they do not bud they are artificially heated in a stove pipe. In Orlagau in Thuringia the custom is called whipping with fresh green, and the spoken words tell the same tale: Good morning! Fresh Green! Long life! You must give us a bright thaler. All is to be fresh, new, bright, living. It is the induction by contagion Of new vitality and fertility. In Plutarch's ceremony, be it noted, the slave is beaten with rods of agnus cactus, a plant much in use in ancient medicine as a fertility charm.
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